Audrey Young: Key detects wind is blowing towards transparency

Whatever his motives, Prime Minister John Key took a huge step yesterday in changing his mind over the transparency of funding Parliament and MPs.

He has decided to front-foot the issue and will give his support to opening up Parliament to the Official Information Act.

Just a few weeks ago, he said it was a matter for Parliament and the Speaker. Now he has decided it would be good for a cross-party committee to be set up to look at the issue.

That might not sound like much but it is. There is only one decision a group like that can reach in an age such as this and that is greater transparency.

The only question is how far will transparency go. Will it just be for MPs' accommodation and travel? Or will it extend to what MPs spend at Parliament around election time?

And will it mean the public will know which lobbyists get access to Parliament with unquestioned security access?

For Key the issue is MPs' expenses. He has stuck his finger in the air and realised the wind is blowing in one direction on this. He has used his political instincts to put National on the only defensible side of the debate.

The fact that the Green MPs have just announced they will regularly reveal their expenses - with support from Act and the Maori Party - was added pressure.

Every time other parties did it, the big old parties would be asked why they did not.

Key was right yesterday when he said ministers were already subject to scrutiny under the Official Information Act.

But that only makes resistance to greater scrutiny for ordinary MPs less defensible - if it's okay for a minister, it should be okay for an MP.

Key was also right when he said the system in New Zealand had been designed so no MP could get away with what British MPs have.

But if there is nothing to hide, why the fuss about greater scrutiny?

Perhaps the only legitimate reason for concern is where this possibility could lead in terms of separation between the courts and Parliament.

Where it can, Parliament resists the courts having the final say on itself as an institution through, for example, judicial review.

That is why completing the Register of Pecuniary Interests is a requirement of MPs under standing orders, not a law.

Even in that document, there are signs MPs are comfortable moving to greater transparency, with the Registrar, Dame Margaret Bazley, noting with concern MPs are starting to declare things they do not need to.

Part of Key's change of heart must be down to the Krakatoa effect the British expenses scandal is having around the world.

While at home Conservative leader David Cameron and Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown are now breaking their necks to be seen as a greater reformer than the other, round the globe it has reinforced an inherent mistrust of politicians.

That mistrust was at its height in New Zealand last term in the aftermath of the funding issues at the 2005 election. Thankfully everyone has since agreed to start again.

But moves to greater transparency have taken place in other countries - United States President Barack Obama and Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd set down rules and registers for lobbyists early in their terms.

And with the global financial crisis having created a climate where politicians can and should be demanding greater transparency of others, it is only fitting that the same ethos should apply at home.

It is pretty clear John Key's latest move is not motivated by a heart-felt belief in greater transparency but by not wanting to end up on the wrong side of an issue.

That does not matter. The outcome does.